A Warmer Climate
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Natasha finds some reassurance in her best friend on the day she buries her father. [Highschool AU]


She buries her father on a sunny day in June.

The sun is shining, there are birds chirping in the graveyard trees and it just feels…wrong. This isn't a funeral. This isn't a sad day, really. Today is the first day in weeks that it hasn't rained in this poor excuse for a summer, and the sun even feels warm on her hands - just her hands, everything else is covered by the black cardigan. Her mother spent three days trying to find a suitable black dress to wear for today, but Natasha? Her wardrobe was full of black already, it wasn't hard.

But still, they are burying her father. She's watching as they lower his casket into the ground and there's nothing in her mind but the last time she saw him. She doesn't remember where he was going, or what he was saying, but she remembers her mother fussing over the uneven collar on his coat, and then he went out of the door, rolling his eyes at her and was gone. Gone. Gone like the laughter in their home and the thoughts inside her mind.

A hand slipped into hers as she watched her father's casket vanish from sight. It wasn't her mothers, as her mother was too busy sobbing into a handkerchief, but she knew the hand well. The skin was rough, calloused but still gentle. She didn't need to turn her head to know that it was the hand of her best friend, Clint.

Hours later, when the wake was starting to produce drunken tears from family members in their house - filled with relatives, still empty - that same hand lead her upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door behind them. No one would bother them, not today. Not when they were all looking to Natasha's mother like a broken doll as she fussed over entertaining guests that wanted to care for her instead. Natasha blended into the background over the past few days and she intended to stay that way.

Clint goes over to the bed that was pushed against the wall, shuffling up against the headboard and tugging on the tie. She can't help but smile a little, he'd never liked dressing up smart. She could see that the shirt was his own, but the suit itself was ill-fitting - borrowed from his Uncle Phil, no doubt - and the tie that didn't quite match any part of the suit was his elder brothers. He pats the bed space next to her and she crawls into it, kicking off the shoes that had already pinched at her heels.

"Sorry I was late," he mumbles to her as he flung an arm around her shoulder.

"Wish I could have been late," she replies when her head finds his shoulder.

Wish I didn't have to be there. Wish he was still alive. Wish he hadn't taken that road. Wish he hadn't been caught in that accident. Wish he hadn't been one of the eight funerals taking place that day.

They fall into an easy silence, the sound of the wake a distant background noise, but they're hidden away and it doesn't matter whether they can hear the uncomfortable mumbles of nostalgic laughter and the chink of teacups against saucers.

"They want us to move back out East, my grandparents," she tells him, her eyes on the discarded shoes rather than him. "They don't think my mom will break out of the depression."

He snorts from beside her. "It's been six days, she's allowed to be depressed." So are you, he tells her without words.

"Yeah, well…" she sighs. "If they have it their way we'll be leaving at the end of the week."

"Moscow?" he asks her.

"Home sweet home," she drawls sarcastically.

"Well, there's only one thing for it," he decides, shifting a little so that he's laying down on the bed. He tugs her with him so that they're facing each other on the mattress. "We'll have to run away together."

She'd usually bat him around the head, smirk and tell him to stop being stupid, but today…today when she's buried her father and her childhood along with him, today she'll humour him. "Where would we go?"

"Circus," he shrugs. "We'll get jobs in the circus, travel the world and entertain everyone. I'll shoot arrows with a blindfold on and you can get on the high wire with your gymnastic skills. We'll be the best performance team there is."

"You have high hopes for us," she says with a gentle smile.

"Of course, people will come from all over the world to see us," he brags. "Well, mainly you in your leotard."

She does laugh at that, for the first time in days. "I'm not kidding. Have you ever looked in the mirror when you're wearing that thing?"

"Seriously, Barton?" she asks him with a smirk.

"Yes, seriously. That sight always cures a bad day."

She does reach out to bat his head this time, and he captures her arm afterwards, pulling it around his shoulders so he can slip his arm around her waist. There's no space between them now. There is only his chin against her hair, the scent from his neck right by her nose.

"I would run away with you, Tasha," he tells her, quieter, more truthful than before.

"I know," she whispers back, sighing against him. "One day, maybe. But not the circus."

He laughs into her hair. "Then where will we live?"

"Somewhere warm," she decides. "Somewhere I won't have to sleep on a train with horses."

He nods against her, his arm tugging her closer. "Somewhere warm it is. You, me, and a beach in Hawaii. How does that sound?"

"Better," she nods, burying herself away in him.

"Or something better still…" he started to tempt her, his head lifting from her hair so that he could see her face again. "Just in case you do go back to Russia…we finish school. We get our diplomas, we go to college. But we find each other, okay? When we're adults and they can't keep us apart any more. We find each other, and we get ourselves a nice house, with a big back yard and a lot of bedrooms so we can have a room dedicated to everything we love…and maybe we'll keep a room spare for something that we love together, who knows? The point is, we find each other, we come back to each other every time we get taken apart, okay?"

She nods while he pushes the hair back from her face, and she closes her eyes when he leans down to kiss her. It's not the first time they've kissed - they've always had a 'thing' - but this is the first time that it makes her realise that this isn't a friendship, that this is something stronger and something that makes her heart pound. This time it's not just a brush of lips, it's deeper and more meaningful. She can feel his hands clutching at her, firmer than usual as they try to assure her that he will find her if she has to leave. She knows that this kiss is the most intimate moment she's experienced, and him as well, but she knows that this won't lead to a moment of heightened passion - someday, maybe, but not on the day that she buries her father.

But she's content now, away from the relatives exchanging old memories of a man she'd never see again. She's content and comfortable in her best friend's arms, and she feels safe when his lips steal touches to her own, to her cheeks, to her jaw. So she stays in the warm, and hides away in the thoughts of the warmer place that awaits them.


End file.
